Learn to listen, listen to learn

Some of the most instructive and entertaining videos accessible online are ones presenting Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk's campus travels. At times seeming nearly bored, he bats aside inferior arguments he's probably encountered innumerable times.

It's not uncommon for wet-eared radicals to interrupt Kirk and shout over him. Of course, students so striving to make theirs the only postures evident are denying others' free speech rights. Fear that listeners might be swayed, were they exposed to contrasting views, bespeaks weakness.

In any nation where citizens exercise control (at least, theoretically), conversation about issues, candidates, and elected officials is crucial to richer understanding and, hence, more responsible voting. Even heated debate between ideological partisans can prove beneficial.

But to be productive, such exchanges must be respectful. All speakers should be allowed to articulate positions fully. Then, both participants and observers can weigh divergent perspectives — considering each for strengths and flaws — and arrive at informed conclusions.

Blocking others' speech as a routine tactical device is illegitimate.

Ad Hominem broadsides, feigned guffawing, shouting over opponents in order to prevent them from being heard — those are strategies of the playground (or cable news panels). They hint strongly at agitators' likely self-awareness of position frailty. If they were able to mount sound arguments, they wouldn't resort to petty misbehavior.

Debates are never won by bratty carryings-on. Victory belongs to those who present superior reasoning and facts. For some, though, objective facts simply are not allies.

Too, there is the fascistic attitude that opponents' contentions do not deserve fair treatment, and that obstructing their visibility serves some greater morality. Cuban dictator Fidel Castro executed citizens who'd inveighed against that country's communism. His rationale was that national self-defense interest justified killing voices that threatened orthodoxy.

Untrammeled American political speech is now reviled as a threat to be quashed (even violently) in intolerant, 'woke' circles. Tactics employed include denying platforms to voices, activists blowing whistles to drown out speakers, and campaigns to pressure advertisers into dropping support for contrary radio and television programs.

Often, participants in progressive events are instructed by organizers to ignore investigating questioners.

A blood relative of those is the blocking of independent cameras to prevent the recording and transmission of illicit demonstrator activities — including incitement, vandalism, arson, and attacks on law enforcement.

Liberals once championed fair debate in "the marketplace of ideas." Then, Marxists took the wheel. Having now traveled three stoplights past crazy, they seem convinced yesterday's wrong is the new correct.

Perhaps Charlie Kirk could turn them around. But they'd have to listen to learn.

DC Larson is the author of “That a Man Can Stand Up” and “Ideas Afoot.” His work has appeared in the Daily Caller, The Iowa Standard, and American Thinker. His political blog is American Scene Magazine. He lives in Waterloo.